


Successful Author

by constantlearner



Series: Pieces [2]
Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers, Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome, The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: F/M, canon character death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 13:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2311157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constantlearner/pseuds/constantlearner
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dorothea Wimsey - Lady St George is becoming a successful author of adventurous historical romances - or romantic historical adventures, depending on your point of view. She uses her maiden name as a pen name, but this has done little to mollify the Duchess of Denver.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve moved some of the events from Falconer’s Lure from 1948 to 1947, and hope Antonia Forest fans will forgive me. The Marlow family are used to their timeline being altered by more than that, and I thought people might mind more if I moved the Berlin Airlift instead.

**Spring 1947**

Roger Walker to Jon Marlow

_I bought this book because a friend had written it. She’s not exactly a new writer – she’s done quite a lot of short stories for magazines, but this is her first actual book. Actually, it’s not a bad yarn. I bought a copy, but then she sent me one. Of course all the rest of the family have one as well. If you don’t like it you could always pass it on to the dozens of cousins. One of them is bound to be the right age, surely. How’s the farming going?_

Jon Marlow to Roger Walker

_Thank you.  I read it. A bit slushy in places but the adventurous bits are OK. I got the impression her heart was in the adventure more than the romance. I noticed she seems to have a good review or too. I have duly placed it in the library. The cousins range from 24 to just gone to boarding school, so as you say, it must be alright for one of them. (I doubt it will do for the going up to Oxford-next-autumn-one. She’d the last person I would imagine throwing everything away for love!). All but the followed-his-father-into-the-navy-like-a dutiful-eldest-son one are coming for most of August. Cousin Geoffrey has been promoted to captain and has two months leave coming to him, so he can look after his family while I get on with tilling the ancestral acres. Actually, it will be harvesting not tilling, so but you get the idea. You wouldn’t feel like putting in an appearance would you? I can promise you trout fishing if it’s any inducement. Surely you must be due some leave about then?_

* * *

**Summer holidays 1947**

Jonathan Marlow left his cousin Peter happily helping in the wheat field and went to fetch Roger from the station by himself.

“Feeling a bit sore because he thinks one of his sisters has swiped his particular friend, I think.” Jon explained as Roger dumped his gear in the back of the vehicle. Anyway, I said he could come along and watch this afternoon. If you could keep a bit of an eye on him, I’d be grateful.”

“Of course, I will. How old?”

“Thirteen, I think, or fourteen. He’s the next youngest after the twins anyway. The last time they were here they all just ran about and made a noise. Now they finish nearly all the Times crossword, and translate Greek for fun, and employ sarcasm with no prior warning, and play Bach when I’m not expecting it. Inviting you without telling them is my act of rebellion. I’ve told Mrs Bertie of course. Luckily the girls seem to expect to share bedrooms, so there is a room for you. Look here, I am going to have to do my duty by the ancestral acres in the wheat field this morning and this afternoon is spoken for. I wondered if you might like to have a look at the hawks tomorrow morning. What’s the absolute latest you have to go tomorrow?”

“Ten forty.”

“And I promised you fishing. Look, do you want to give it a go this morning? I can show you where you’ll probably do best, although it isn’t my thing really. We’ll have plenty of time to yarn this evening.”

“If that’s not too much trouble.” Roger did not share his younger sister’s fascination with agriculture, and it seemed pretty clear that Jon would be quite happy for Roger to occupy himself for the morning.

“Peter and I will come and collect you in time for lunch. It’s my land by the way, so you won’t have any bother.”

* * *

 

 _She thinks I haven’t noticed her because she’s standing in the shade and she’s standing still._ Roger thought. She was slim, with short blonde hair. She seemed quite confident, balancing easily on a rounded rock at the edge of the stream. She was wearing plimsolls but no socks. Her long legs were clad (or mostly not clad) in shorts.

“This is private land, you know.” she said eventually.

“Your cousin did mention it.”

“Jon knows you’re here?” she sounded doubtful.

“Of course.” _Now why should you doubt me, little Miss Confidence._ She might be one of the older ones. Roger thought she probably was. Perhaps twenty or so?

“How do you know who I am?”

“Well, I don’t know which one you are.” Roger admitted. “I only know to within half a dozen guesses. You don’t look as if your name is Peter.”

She gave a short laugh, as if unwilling to concede that he had amused her. “It isn’t Giles either.”

He glanced at her briefly. “You’re probably right.” He returned to tying the fly on again.

“I’m Rowan.” she said eventually.

“I’m Roger Walker.” He looked to see if she was going to offer to shake hands, but she didn’t.

“Do you expect to catch much?” she asked. It was almost as if she was seeking to prolong the conversation.

“I don’t know. Should I?”

“We used to come here when I was a kid, before the war. We haven’t been here in – oh, I don’t know, six, seven, eight years. I can’t remember fishing. Not in this stream. My father fishes sometimes, but not here. We aren’t that far from the sea.”

Rowan was watching him intently, as she casually dabbled the sole of one plimsoll in the water. Roger wondered if, despite her air of detached confidence, she was actually flirting with him in an off-hand Marlow-ish sort of way. Perhaps she was simply bored.

“So what do you do then, Roger Walker, do you farm too?”

“Me – no – I wouldn’t know where to start. Well, I would of course. I’d ask my little sister. No, I fly things, and in my time off from that I fish, and when I don’t do that I sail.”

“My father’s in the Navy.” Rowan said.

“Mine too. And my older brother.”

“Mine too.” Roger said.

“My younger brother will be too.”

“I remember them saying that about me. And what do you do, Rowan Marlow?”

“Study for exams like a good girl and play games as much as I can. Ride sometimes and swim. I might be Games Captain next term.”

Ah. She was at most – what? Eighteen? Seventeen? A schoolgirl anyway. A pity perhaps.

“And everyone expects you to be a games mistress when you grow up?”

“What makes you say that?” Rowan asked.

“Confident, good at games. It’s the sort of thing people do say.”

Rowan pulled a face. “I’m afraid they do. I may have mentioned it once, when I was in the third form. Now everyone assumes that I still want to do it.”

“Do you think I should be?”

“Do you like teaching people? What about people who aren’t very good at games?”

“Can’t stand them, some days.” Rowan said cheerfully. “I don’t know whether they’re more irritating when they do try and you know that really is the best they can do, or when they won’t try.”

“If I were you, I wouldn’t go for games teaching then. What do you want to be?”

“I thought an architect. I’m quite good at running things and organising and seeing that things get done. It would be rather satisfying to be able to look at a building and say _I designed that._ One has to be able to draw, however, and although I’m not bad at maths, I don’t think I’m that good either. So that’s no go. Grandmother wants me to be finished. I’ve thought about university. My sister is going to Oxford in the autumn. The idea of clubs and societies and so on appeals, and plenty of chances to play hockey. All the things I’m good at school. That’s the problem. I’m good at the things that they want you to do at school, but you can’t make a job out of them.”

“Things happen and chances turn up when you’re not expecting them. You never know your luck.”

Later Roger would have given so much not to have said that.

 


	2. Chapter 2

** October 1947- London **

Dorothea wasn’t exactly late, but Roger was already there. He, unlike Susan, wasn’t naturally inclined to punctuality. Dorothea realised he had probably made a special effort to make sure that she didn’t have to wait in the bar for him. Not that it was exactly crowded, and the hotel was recommended by the Dowager Duchess, so she was fairly sure no-one would pester her. Still, Dorothea appreciated the gesture. For all Roger’s cockiness, and their occasional bickering as children, he always had watched out for her.

“New glad rags?” he asked, following it with “Gin and tonic?”

“Thank you.” Dorothea replied to both questions. “It used to be one of Harriet’s. She gave it to me and told me where to go to get it remodelled. Only, embarrassingly, it seems she also told them to send the bill to her.”

“It’s a lot less than half a dinghy.” Roger pointed out.

Dorothea wasn’t sure what he meant. She must have looked puzzled.

“Captain Flint gave _Amazon_ to the Amazons.” Roger pointed out. “And I have to admit to rather enjoying buying presents for Edward. You do too, I’ve noticed. Lady Peter probably enjoys giving you something just as much as we enjoy buying toys for our nephew. Even though it probably isn’t as much fun as getting them to let you try all the pull- along-wooden-elephants in the shop to see which goes best.”

“Well, it _is_ a good elephant.” Dorothea said. Since Edward’s other favourite toys were a saucepan and a wooden spoon, she felt that the elephant Roger had given him for his first birthday was to be encouraged.

“Wouldn’t you rather sit down?”

“Yes, please. It was very much be introduced and stand about at this party, trying to make interesting small talk in the hopes that they’ll remember enough to actually review the book.”

“Was this the civil war one?”

“No, that’s only just been accepted. This is the eighteenth century one about the girl from Whitehaven who goes to sea in her brother’s place and becomes a pirate.”

“Is she rather like someone we know?” Roger grinned at Dorothea across the little table.

“Not as much as you might think.” she said.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. Now that was a sentence she must remember. Eyebrows needed to be raised surprisingly often, and a new way of doing it would be very useful.

“No - really. If you just try to put real people straight into a story, it starts being a different story, or they stop being the same people.” She explained

“I was never any good at making up stories. Not like the others were. Being things, yes, but not making up stories.”

“Maybe the being makes the stories happen anyway.” Dorothea said, feeling rather aware that the gin and tonic was landing on top of a couple of strange sticky cocktails in an otherwise empty stomach. “Look here, are you doing anything else this evening?”

“I was going to meet a few chaps I know later. But if you’ve got to go and be the up-and-coming author at another party….”The hand that wasn’t holding his beer glass made a sketchy gesture, encompassing the grey satin dress, the single string of small pearls and the little darker grey velvet jacket that went with the dress.

“It wasn’t that.” Dorothea said hastily. “It’s just that my advance for the civil war book is burning a hole in my pocket rather, and I’m longing to treat someone to something, so I wondered if you’d like to have dinner with me. I don’t mind eating rather early if it suits you. Or were you going to eat with your friends?”

“That wasn’t the plan. I’d enjoy having dinner with you, Dot, if you’re sure.”

* * *

 

Roger had wondered about dinner in the rather stuffy looking hotel. It definitely looked a great-auntish sort of place to him. Dorothea took him instead to a little restaurant within walking distance. The portions were reasonable and the food was well cooked.

“Harriet brought me here when my first book was accepted.” Dorothea explained. Roger wondered how many of the other diners were famous authors. (Not that Dot was famous yet, of course, but Harriet Vane’s books sold nearly as well as Agatha Christie’s.) In any case, it seemed less stuffy than the hotel. He did not appear to be underdressed, nor did Dorothea seem overdressed compared to the other guests. Not that he cared about it, exactly, but he didn’t want to let Dorothea down. A woman two tables away had certainly noticed Dorothea with a flicker of recognition, when she sat down. Roger wondered if she had recognised Lady St George or Dorothea Callum, the author of historical romances. He hoped it was the latter.

They talked for much longer than he had expected, about Titty and Dick, about Peggy’s strange adventure with her aunt-in-law’s girl guide company, about Dorothea learning to ride, about Bridget’s agricultural course, and about events at Horning. They speculated about what Nancy was doing on Malta. Probably shivering timbers and bossing everyone terribly, Roger suggested. Eventually, Roger found himself beginning to tell Dot about the events that summer at Trennels. Dot put out her hand and gently touched his wrist.

“Will you walk me back to the hotel now?” was all she asked him, but she squeezed his wrist so softly he only just felt it. Two shorts and a long.

“Of course.” Roger said, and looked around to catch the waiter’s eye, only to find that Dot had done so, so smoothly he hadn’t even noticed her doing it, and had her purse out ready to pay the bill. The woman who had recognised Dot when they entered looked away hastily to avoid meeting Roger’s eyes as he held Dot’s jacket for her to put on. Roger noticed that the place was beginning to empty out again and managed to look discretely at his watch. It was rather later than he thought.

They were well away from the restaurant, before Dot explained. “That woman in the turquoise dress was Amaranth Sylvester-Quicke. She’s - well I can tell Peter doesn’t trust her. She has her knife into Harriet anyway. There are a number of people who suspect her of writing for gossip pages. She used to be rather pally with the Duchess, or at least her aunt, Lady Stoate, was. They appear to have fallen out. I mean mama-in-law and Miss Sylvester-Quicke. Lady Stoate’s dead now of course. Anyway, I’m sure you weren’t really going to tell me anything secret, and I wouldn’t repeat it anyway, but she would be quite capable of insinuating that you had, if she picked out even the odd word or two. We can talk in the resident’s sitting room. I expect it will be empty at this time.”

 _When had Dot become so sophisticated? Had it been happening gradually?_ Roger wondered. Perhaps it was something he had noticed each time he had seen her (which hadn’t been often since the early part of the war) but forgotten about in between, more recent memories being overlaid by older ones – Dot skating on the frozen tarn, their squabbling on that holiday in the Hebrides? He had been a little beast that summer.  The trouble had been that, in previous summers, they had always split neatly into pairs. The mates had their own close friendship, the captains did captain-ish things together, and Roger and Titty had had the most interesting adventures. With the arrival of the Callums, things had become even better. Dick had been far less likely to say “should we?” than Titty, and Titty and Dorothea had become firm friends almost instantly on meeting. The business with the egg-collector had changed that somehow – drawing Titty into closer sympathy with Dick and leaving Roger on the outside, feeling his two-years-younger-ness in a way he had not since that first summer at the Lake.  He had felt it, too, bitterly, later on, when Dot had given him the gentlest (he now realised) of “No”s  that summer’s day in Swallowdale. What a world of complication and misery her common sense had save them from then!

He had offered her his arm as they left the restaurant, and he squeezed it now, a gentle trapping of her fingers between his arm and his side. She looked enquiringly at him. Wearing those heels, she was the same height as he was. He wondered how she would react if he kissed her. He was being a complete duffer. He hadn’t thought about her like that for years, and it wasn’t as if he had drunk that much either. Certainly not as much as he had planned to.

“I was just thinking how wise you were, that summer after we came back from the Baltic. I should have made you perfectly miserable as your boyfriend. And we should have been irritating each other all evening instead of enjoying ourselves.”

“I’m sorry if I was unkind.” She squeezed his arm in, he thought, needless apology.

“You weren’t. Quite the opposite.” He brushed his lips lightly against her cheek in thanks he could not put into words.

 Once they were inside the hotel, Dorothea paused then turned round, on the threshold of the residents’ sitting room. Roger could hear the low murmur of male voices – speaking French he thought.

“Let’s go up to my room.” she muttered. “Quickly, before we have to make small talk with one of Gerry’s relations.”


	3. Chapter 3

** Five minutes later **

Dorothea wondered if she had done the right thing. Oh, taking Roger up to her room didn’t bother her. There was a writing table and a little sofa: the room was at least as much study as bedroom. He had clammed up again, though, as if the change of place had broken the confiding mood.

He asked if she could still tickle trout. She asked if he had done any fishing when he had leave in the summer. Roger explained about his visit to Trennels, about the awkward midday meal, about standing with Jon’s cousin Peter watching Jon test the new plane. He described Peter’s awestricken wow at that last dive, his own realisation of what had gone wrong, of the tragedy that physics now made inevitable. He told her how he had grabbed Peter arm and spun him round, burying the boy’s face in his own shoulder.

“He’ll see it, anyway, in his mind’s eye, over and over. Maybe it won’t have made a difference.” Roger said.

“Not the very last bit. Not the moment…” Dot swallowed. “You couldn’t do anything for your friend. You did what you could for his cousin.”

“I took him back to his parents before anyone decided that he had to sit about for ages with a total stranger before being told he could go. Neither of us was there at all, officially. I explained what I could, asked if there was anything I could do to help; you can guess the sort of thing. It was pretty obvious that they’d prefer it if I wasn’t there, so picked up my things and walked back to the station.  One of the girls walked with me, offered to help carry my stuff. Asked if I would be OK and would have somewhere to go and so forth.  Decent kid. Ann, her name was.”

“Where did you go?”

“Went to see Bridget.” Roger glanced up from weaving his fingers together and untangling them. “Oh, I shouldn’t have been surprised that they were writing to each other, considering I had introduced Jon to Bridgie myself. Jon had left his coat in the jeep with the keys in a pocket. When I went through his pockets for the keys to drive the kid back to Trennels, I found her letter and recognised her fist on the envelope. Anyway, it seems that Jon had written to her about something, asking for advice. Her training placement wasn’t completely  unreachable in the time I had left, so I thought I’d better go and tell her myself. It seemed just possible you see …  People do keep things like that to themselves … And it would have been such a good idea in so many ways. I asked Bridget straight out about it.” A twisted ghost of a smile. “Not the most tactful thing probably. I’m not Titty or Susan, after all. Anyway, she said _Nothing on my side. At least not yet._ She didn’t have to think about her answer when I asked either.”

Dorothea nodded as Roger looked to see if she had understood what he was saying – and what Bridget was not saying.

 “He’d written a couple of times, asking her for advice, she said. I’d have thought Jon would look stuff up in books – or ask his farm manager. Then I had to go back, of course. Wrote a proper letter to the cousins. You know the sort of thing.”

Dorothea nodded again. There had been a surprising number of letters of condolence to be answered after Mrs Barrable’s death. She had answered some of them herself and had drafted some of the replies for Mrs Barrable’s brother to copy. He had found it hard to make decisions over even minor things – although she supposed the letters were not exactly minor.

“The kid who walked with me to the station wrote back. Thanked me for looking after her brother. Told me what hymns they’d had at the funeral – that sort of thing.  Said the family were staying at Trennels.  Her next oldest sister, Rowan, is taking over the running of the farm. It comes to Jon’s cousin Geoffrey of course. I suppose he doesn’t want to give up the navy. I suppose father wouldn’t if it were us. I can’t see him landing something like that on the girls though. Well, except Bridget, but that’s what she wants to do, of course. This Rowan is younger, just a schoolgirl.”

“We don’t know the ins and outs of it. Maybe they can’t really do without his pay. If she likes that sort of thing and it means she inherits a farm someday, why not? Titty was saying that Bridgie would most likely be stuck with being a farm manager at best.”

“I suppose that’s the same for this kid. Except that she’ll be working for her father and then her older brother, who’s also in the navy. It’s one of these entailed places – been in the family for hundreds of years and so on. Jon pretended to grumble about it, but you could tell he loved the place. Loved the flying, of course, but … Jon once said that he belonged to Trennels as much as it belonged to him. ”

“What had caused the accident?” Dorothea asked quietly. Roger was looking down at his hands again.

“I can’t tell anyone that. That’s what I’m back here for. They wanted me to go over and over exactly what I had seen, what I had noticed. Then they wanted my word that I wouldn’t discuss that aspect of it with anyone else. As if I would. It’s just – after everything else – it’s just such a _fucking waste._ Sorry, Dot. Why couldn’t the idiot know when he’d pushed his luck far enough and stuck to his ancestral acres?”

Gerry could no more have stopped pushing his luck than he could have stopped breathing. It had just been Gerry’s good fortune that the war made a duty of the risks he would have taken (or something similar) anyway. Roger’s friend was probably the same, Dot thought.

Roger looked up again. Whatever he saw in her face made him say, “Oh hell, you’re the last person I should…. Oh, Dot, I am sorry.”

“That’s OK. You needed to tell someone.” she said, but accepted his tentatively offered hug anyway. She wasn’t weeping, but it took a moment or two for her breathing to become steadier. Perhaps she stayed a moment or two longer than she should have done with her face on Roger’s shoulder, cheek pressed against his neck where she could feel his pulse. It felt such a relief to be _held._ His hand stroked the grey satin between her shoulder blades as if she was an upset Edward in need of comfort. She raised her head.

“I’m sorry too.”

He kissed her lightly on the lips. A light friendly kiss. She kissed him, and her kiss lingered a little longer.Was he offended? Evidently not, because he kissed her back, more warmly this time, drawing her closer.  This was probably a very bad idea –  and shockingly unfair on Roger. However much affection she felt for Roger, it would never amount to enough to make any permanent relationship tolerable. The kisses seemed too enjoyable to stop. She felt his hands gentle at the nape of her neck, teasing out the hairpins that held her hair up. She felt the warmth of his back against the palms of her hands.

It was Roger who mustered up the resolution to say something first. “Look Dot, I’m very fond of you, and you’re very beautiful, but you do realise, don’t you, that I’d make a lousy boyfriend for you?”

But he did not let go of her, and kissed her again, and she found herself saying, “This evening is just this evening.”

“Good,” Roger murmured.

Later, quite a lot later, when the noise of traffic had died away to almost nothing in the street outside, he asked her, “Is this what you want? Are you quite sure?”

“Yes, very much. Only,” she sighed, and began with reluctance to move away from their close embrace. “consequences.”

He grinned and bent down to search through his pockets in the muddle of clothes about their feet. He found what he was looking for and held it up for her to see.

“Optimism.” he said. “Almost always entirely without foundation, I confess. I was expecting a very different sort of evening out.”

Later, she wondered if it was the optimism or the lack of foundation which prompted Roger’s slight air of confession. At the time, she took it for a sign, of sorts, and taking Roger by the hand, led him over to the bed

* * *

 

“I shouldn’t have slept this long.” He had slept well, better than he had done in a long while and, he thought, dreamlessly. He couldn’t remember any dreams, at least. “I’m sorry, Dot. I must go before anyone realises…..”

Getting caught would, unfairly, damage her reputation hugely and probably do very little damage to his. (Except that he would attract a certain amount of well-deserved censure for letting himself be caught.) Dick and Titty (and the rest of his family) would be furious with him if he let that happen. He would be furious with himself.

The sky outside was becoming grey. He did not think the sun had risen. He gathered together his clothes. One sock seemed to be missing. Dorothea sat up, slid to the side of the bed and put on the prosaic pyjamas she had dumped on the floor last night. It was as if she was putting on common –sense with the pyjamas. The quickest of washes. He didn’t have a tooth brush of course, but here was Dot’s toothpaste, so he did the best he could with that. When he came out of the bathroom, Dot was peering out through a gap in the curtains.

“ _Busy old fool, unruly sun”_ she observed. “At least, not quite yet. People are beginning to deliver things and be about though. You won’t be that conspicuous. People must have to get up early and catch trains and things.”

He had worried when she had started to quote whoever it was. Shakespere perhaps. The rest of what she said sounded so very much like the Dot that he had always known, that Roger might almost believe he was imagining last night, except of course, that he was here.

She came and stood close to him, but did not touch him. He knew he had to say something.

“Dot, last night was marvellous, and you are kind and beautiful and generous, but all the same..” he didn’t know how to finish.

She finished for him. “All the same we shouldn’t suit each other. Last night was last night. I enjoyed it very much too, but I think it should be only this once.”

He tried not to look either relieved or disappointed. Did she want to be hugged? Yes. He felt rather pleased at that.

“Please write though. I don’t want to think I only dreamed this. I’m going to stay with Gerry’s grandmother this evening. I’ll be there until the end of November I think.” she added, as he tied his tie and flipped his collar down.

“Of course.”

She had followed him to the door.

“Look, don’t.” Roger said. “The whole point is to get out without compromising _your_ reputation. No-one care what some insignificant RAF officer got up to last night, especially out of uniform. Even if I do get spotted, provided no-one connects me with you, it won’t be too bad. And don’t speak once I’ve opened the door.”

Dot nodded; kissed him; remembered not to shut the door behind him, but let him close it himself.

Had he heard another door close hastily somewhere down the corridor? An early traveller? Surely not, in this haven of stuffy respectability, someone in the same position as himself? Roger walked as quietly along the carpeted corridor. Outright sneaking about would only call attention to himself, but there was no harm in being as unnoticeable as possible. The lift would be a mistake. There was no chance to slip back quietly out of sight when you heard voices. Perhaps there might even be a back entrance, accessible from the staircase.

There was – and it was locked. Deliveries had already been made. Perhaps it would have been a bit too easy for someone to slip in and carry away the boxes of fish, meat and bread, which would surely have sold well on the black market. To get to the ground floor and the entrance for guests, Roger would have to go up again to the first floor, along a corridor and down a different (and better carpeted) set of stairs. He hoped there had been a change of shift. Surely the clerk who had sat at the reception desk last night would remember someone as young and lovely as Dot in a place that seemed stuffed with Dowager Lady this and that’s. Might he not therefore recognise Dorothea’s companion? The more Roger hung around the more likely it was that someone would ask him his business, but would it be better to wait for a change to the day shift if the same receptionist was still there. If he walked as if he belonged, might he get away with for a while, like the thief in Chesterton’s story?

The next turn would bring him to the marble-floored entrance hall, he thought. He paused, listened. He lift doors rattled open then closed again. He would hear the receptionist speak, now perhaps. It sounded like a woman’s voice, but he could not quite hear the question. A man’s voice – perhaps and old man, or one with breathing difficulties – answered. Someone was beginning to climb the stairs towards him, slowly. Roger went backwards upstairs as quietly as he could. It would not do to get caught lurking. He would just have to rattle downstairs, pass whoever it was with a cheery “good morning” and walk briskly out of the door. It was always possible that they would think he was a guest attempting to leave without paying, but his lack of luggage should prevent that. He hoped.

It was a good plan, and it would probably have worked. That wasn’t what happened though.

“Young man!”

 _He must be a hundred_ , thought Roger. _He’s doing very well_ _to climb stairs at all._

“Sir?” Well, that was non-committal enough anyway.

“A word with you, young man.”

He went closer, rather alarmed by the old gentleman’s breathlessness. One of the thin frail hands was clenched in a fist front of the heaving chest, but so far as Roger could see, neither lips nor fingernails were blue.

“Would you like me to fetch help? A glass of water?” Roger wondered if he should go to the reception desk, tell them an elderly gentleman was ill and required assistance on the staircase and slip away in the ensuing fuss. That was all very well, but the poor old chap did appear to be very ill. The poor old chap shook his head and grasped Roger’s arm. After a minute or so, the man appeared capable of speech again.

“Just a touch of angina.” he said. “My doctor forbids stairs, but you’re deuced difficult to catch up with. My name is Delgardie. What shall I call you?”

“Jones.” It wasn’t actually a lie. Roger wondered if the old gentleman had phrased his question that way deliberately. His manner seemed shrewd enough.

“What we’ll do is this, Mr Jones. You’ll give me your arm as we go down the stairs and then bid me goodbye and be on your way. They know me very well here. Don’t be surprised at anything I say, of course, but perhaps I don’t need to say that.”

It worked perfectly. Roger settled Mr Delgardie into a chair conveniently close to the reception desk, was thank for his help, entrusted with a (he hoped) fictional message to someone called Theo, bade Mr Delgardie farewell and jauntily past the doorman and out into the street.

He could not for the life of him work out why the old gentleman had decided to help him, nor what the man thought Roger had been doing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The quotation isn’t Shakespere. Dorothea, as you might expect from someone who is a friend of Lord Peter Wimsey, is quoting Donne.  
>  Roger is thinking of one of the earlier Father Brown stories. The one about the fish knives.


	4. Chapter 4

 

** Later the same morning **

Titty had mentioned that you could go to a florist and send flowers by telephone. She had sent flowers that way for Mrs Barrable’s funeral. Roger presumed they didn’t just do wreaths. He could go to a florist’s shop and see.

The first one he tried only did local deliveries. Perhaps even a small bunch of flowers would be awkward on a train journey. Suppose she left the hotel before they arrived?  It would be safer to send them to Duke’s Denver. The second place had a queue. A faded list was pinned to the wall – _the  language of flowers._ The more he read, the more fraught with difficulties the whole enterprise seemed. Who knew you could declare hatred for someone quite accidently just because you had thought that orange was a nice cheerful colour and those were the flowers in season? There were perils the other way, too. It hadn’t occurred to him to send red roses, of course, but red carnations seemed equally liable to misinterpretation. Perhaps Dot wouldn’t know all this, either, but he couldn’t be sure.

He gave the Dowager Duchess’s address (with was not that hard to remember). The woman serving behind the counter looked up when he specified Dot’s name.

“And is the Viscountess a married lady or a widow?” she asked. Roger wondered if it made a difference. Perhaps he had been addressing the envelopes all wrong on his, admittedly extremely infrequent, letters to Dot. He was sure one of his sisters would have mentioned it if it really mattered.

“A widow.”

“And any preferences for the type of flowers? I’m afraid we can’t guarantee the same choice as we used to before the war.”

“Maybe pink roses? Is it too late for those?”

The woman nodded her approval. “A wise choice, sir. We find the more mature ladies prefer pastels. If not, I’m sure out colleagues will find a tasteful substitute. And what message with them? It has to be short.”

Roger had not thought of that. The old duchess would see the message, of course, and so would her servants.

“With…” he thought, “with congratulations on her recent success and gratitude for her wise advice.”

He was fairly sure Dot would be able to work out what he was trying to say, and a new book being accepted was surely an unexceptional reason for congratulations.

* * *

 

** Ten days later **

_He quirked an eyebrow enquiringly at her._

_“That is to, say, I haven’t got my licence yet, but expect to pass the final test by the end of the week. You could keep my application and look at it then.” she replied_

It was far too weak, Dorothea thought. The publisher has suggested a modern romance involving aeroplanes. Dorothea had been loath to make the attempt and had already stipulated that the heroine, rather than the hero should be the pilot. She had been trying odd scenes for days now. She knew it wasn’t going to work. Well, it had only been a suggestion, which she had felt honour-bound to try.

“Her grace, the Duchess of Denver to see you, my lady. I have shown her into the drawing room milady.”

“Thank you, Edith. Perhaps you’d better bring some tea in.”

Honoria was out visiting some friends, and the fire in the morning room would have been allowed to die down. The Duchess would prefer the superior grandeur of the rather charming drawing room in any case.

“Your Grace?”

Helen Wimsey had never asked her daughter-in-law to address her by name, but always addressed her by first name. Perhaps the Duchess thought it gave her the upper hand. It meant that the forms of address used were no different to those used between the Duchess and the recent succession of junior housemaids who had taken up and then quickly given up employment at Bredon Hall.

“Dorothea! What have you to say about this?” the Duchess brandished what appeared to be an illustrated news magazine at Dorothea.

“The communist riots in Marseilles and Paris?” Dorothea hazarded a guess, although the Duchess was brandishing the newspaper so vigorously that she couldn’t tell what was on the page at which it was opened. “Mary might know a little more…”

“I mean your disgraceful behaviour in London. You seem to have no idea of what is due to The Family.”

Dorothea felt suddenly rather cold and sick. So far as she could tell from Roger’s extremely guarded letter, he had left the hotel without any sort of fuss. She had been fairly sure that Miss Sylvester-Quicke had not followed them from the restaurant. Well, if there was going to be a fuss she would simply have to remain as calm as possible. Neither of them had been betraying anyone else, after all.

“You can hardly expect be to comment on a story that I haven’t even read.” She told the Duchess.  “I don’t normally read gossip pages.” Perhaps it was unwise to score points in this way.

It would not do to show too much relief. Dorothea knew she was a fast reader. She could take just another minute or so to read it again before responding.

“If you ignore for a moment the speculation in the piece – over which, since I am neither writer nor editor of the piece I hope you will acknowledge I have no control, you feel scandalised because I quite openly had a rather early dinner in a restaurant with my sister-in-law’s brother.  I only wish that Miss Sylvester-Quicke had seen fit to offer all the details of the “intimate conversation” to which she refers.  Let’s see. We discussed our nephew’s progress in learning to walk and the likelihood of him inheriting my brother’s short sight. Roger’s eldest sister is expecting a baby in the New Year, and Mrs Walker is going to stay with them from Christmas Eve until the baby has arrived safely.  What else? Peggy and Jim were expecting their second child very soon (he’s been born now of course), and are still living with Jim’s aunt.”

“Spare me the details of your friends’ expanding families!” the Duchess snapped. Dorothea thought she probably should feel more guilt about having prodded so repeatedly at what she knew was a sore point with her mother-in-law. The Duchess still had Winifred though.  Dorothea thought her sister-in-law, who had for so many years been so anxious to please her mother and had stood by Dorothea so valiantly at Gerry’s funeral, was very unfairly neglected by her family.

“So what are you intending to do about it?” The Duchess demanded.

“Do? Nothing. What can I do?” Dorothea replied. “Did I have dinner with Roger Walker? Yes. Did we talk a great deal about family and friends? Yes. Did I appear to be enjoying the evening? Yes, because I was. I’m sure I did appear to be comfortable in Roger’s company. I’ve known him since were children.  So Miss Sylvester – Quicke thinks Roger is handsome? She’s quite at liberty to say so, although if any of his friends read it, I’m sure he’ll be teased mercilessly. She’s not quite correct in saying the dress was new – the material was from the grey satin evening dress Harriet had just before the war but it was altered quite a bit, so I expect it looked new.”

“A don’t know why she bought it. It never suited her.” The Duchess murmured with automatic acidity.

“That’s more or less what Harriet said.” Dorothea said sweetly. The Duchess could never hide her look of disgust whenever either of her sisters-in-law were mentioned. “The rest is just speculation. It’s a pity to give space to the speculation when there are so many other more important things happening and paper is in such short supply, but I don’t feel inclined to write a letter about it. Any intelligent editor would very naturally reply that people shouldn’t buy a gossip paper if they wanted serious news. I don’t intend to make myself look more of an idiot than I can help.”

“I have just come from a house party where this has caused no little comment from my friends. It puts me in a very difficult situation.”

“Then I can only suggest, your grace, that you choose your friends with greater care in future.”

For a moment, Dorothea thought the Duchess was going to turn and storm out. Perhaps she had gone too far this time. Edith came in with the tea.

“Would you like a cup of tea, your grace? Would you prefer to pour or shall I?” Dorothea turned the topic to the forth coming royal wedding and the likelihood of the coming winter being as severe as the last one.

* * *

 

That went someway to explaining why she had let the Duchess bait her into cutting responses, Dorothea thought later that evening, after Honoria had retired to bed. She pulled the hot water bottle in its woolly cover out of the bed and settled it on her lap.  Roger’s letter had included a very guarded enquiry about her health. He had certainly written as if he expected his letter might be read. Would her letters to him be read too? She couldn’t really see why they should be, but perhaps she had better be careful.

_Dear Roger,_

_Thank you very much indeed for your letter and for the lovely roses.  I am in my usual good health and don’t think that will change in the foreseeable future, but thank you for enquiring. I expect you’ve heard from Dick or Titty or Susan anyway, but Peggy and Jim have a son. (Everything went very well and they are both in good health apparently, Susan says.) You won’t be surprised to know they are calling him James. Susan says (writes, rather) that Sinbad’s fur is becoming a little bit thin, although he seems well enough in other respects. Tom suggested knitting him a sort of jacket, but I don’t imagine a cat would let himself be dressed up. I shudder to think of the bloodshed if anyone tried to put clothes on Nebuchadnezzar. Mind you, simply walking into the morning room is an excuse for an attack as far as he is concerned. I wish he would put half as much energy into going after mice. The duchess’s brother (Honoria’s brother, I mean I don’t think Helen has one) is arriving tomorrow, so perhaps Nebuchadnezzer will go for him and leave my legs alone. The shins heal, but the stockings are hard to come by!_

_With love, Dot._

**Titty Callum to John and Nancy Walker - November 1947**

_…as far as we’re concerned the really exciting news isn’t the wedding. (Although Susie is toddling around with a lacey doily on her head at odd intervals being the “pwincess” – she’s got the “s”s now but still not the “r”s.) Anyway, as you have doubtless been told already, little James is a very nice little baby indeed. He seems tiny compared to Edward, although Peggy keeps pointing out that he has started out a pound heavier than Edward did! Jamie (It seems he’s going to be called that without anyone consciously making the decision.) and Edward quite happily gaze on each other in amiable astonishment. Let’s hope it is the beginning of a friendship. Edward and I are going back to Leeds tomorrow, and Susan is coming to have her turn of baby-worshiping next week….._


	5. Chapter 5

January 1948

Dorothea had somehow expected to feel awkward with Titty and Dick that Christmas. She hadn’t, not even when gave Edward the Christmas present she had chosen on Roger’s behalf as well as the one from herself.

 _Mother and Susan and Peggy are a bit busy at the moment, so would you mind getting him something? I expect you’ll be visiting a toy shop in the near future!_ Roger had written. Dorothea was touched, and a little surprised, that Roger had included a label for the present, carefully cut from a piece of card in the shape of an aeroplane. Once the new university term began, Dorothea’s parents set off to join the Bancrofts at their dig and Dorothea had gone to spend three weeks at Beckfoot. She had rather the impression that Mrs Blackett was feeling lonely after spending Christmas with the Bradings, and was missing Nancy more than she cared to admit.

London – February 1948

The next train that was any good to him didn’t go for another fifteen minutes. Ian supposed he was lucky that it was an express. He’d almost certainly have a long wait at Glasgow. As it was, he had no hope of reaching home tonight. He could spend tonight in Mallaig, and be home tomorrow. He looked around Euston station at his fellow passengers, each one, no doubt, purposefully about their individual affairs, but together looking like complicated currents, flowing in and out of a rock pool. There, for example, the current parted and flowed round a small rock of tuft of seaweed. An abandoned suitcase, perhaps? Ian edged closer to see.

Except it wasn’t something inanimate. The child was about four perhaps, but Ian knew he had no real idea about small children. She was crying, but was evidently trying not to. She also appeared to be alone. Ian felt he probably ought to do something.

“Isn’t somebody with you?” She shook her head, lips tightly pressed together. Wrong question, perhaps. She was alone now after all.

Ian crouched down next to her and tried again.

“Are you lost?” She nodded, lips still compressed, eying him doubtfully.

Ian held out is hand. “Shall we go and find someone who can help?” Perhaps the newly formed British Rail could give out an announcement, although Ian could never imagine how anyone understood what was said through the speakers.

The child folded her arms, tucking her hands in well and shook her head resolutely.

“Do you know your name?”

Another nod.  A look of scorn. At least she had stopped crying, but not even indignation was going to make her speak to this strange man. That much was clear.

Ian looked around for help. A tall, blonde young woman in an elegant grey coat was watching them.

“May I help?” she asked.

“I think she’s lost – but she won’t speak to me or let me take her to the ticket office or anywhere.” Ian said. “My train is at ten past, and I’m going home to see my father who is very ill, so I really can’t miss it, but I don’t want to just leave her.”

The woman smiled at the child. “Well, as you’re obviously quite a sensible young lady, you probably remembered about not going anywhere with strange men and about standing still and waiting to be found if you were lost. That’s what my Mummy and Daddy used to tell me when I was your age. How would it be if I lifted you up so you could see further and you waved and shouted for whoever was with you, so they can find you more easily?”

There came a reluctant nod.

“I’ll lift and you shout and wave.” The woman said. She only had to hold the child up for a few minutes. The girl’s anxious call of “Mummy!” was repeated again in quite a different tone of voice and a harassed woman with wet eyelashes hurried to their side and took the child from the tall woman’s arms.

“Mummy, you lost me.” came the indignant but muffled voice from against the mother’s shoulder. “Stephen letted go of my hand and then there was someone in the way and I had to go round them and then I had go round someone else and then I was losted. So I stood still and then a strange man spoke to me and then a lady lifted me up so I could see.”

“Well you were a good girl to stand still. Thank you so much for helping Linda.” Linda’s mother said.

There was a slight flicker of her eyes over the tall woman in grey and Ian himself. _Deciding we aren’t the sort of people you thank with money,_ Ian thought.

“I hope you won’t think me rude for dashing off, but I’ve left my two boys standing with my mother-in-law, and they’re a bit of a handful.”

“I understand.” The tall young woman had a wonderful smile, Ian thought. She turned to Ian, still smiling and offered her hand.

“If that’s your train,” she nodded at the nearest platform, “I think maybe it’s time you got on it. I hope when you get home you’ll find things aren’t as bad as you feared.”

* * *

 

Things _were_ just as bad as he’d feared, of course. He hadn’t expected otherwise. The doctor’s letter had made matters quite plain to him, and although the briefer letter from his father had attempted to soften the blow somewhat, his father’s innate honesty would not let him hold out false hopes.

Some of things that had worried Ian had not happened. Ian had dreaded that his father’s impending death would put some kind of barrier between them: might shatter the bond of trust that had only seemed to go stronger since Ian had grown up. Father neither brushed his impending death under the carpet, nor made it the sole topic of conversation. He encouraged Ian to talk more about his life in the army and, just as he always had, asked him what he thought about national politics and international events. Just as he had when Ian was at school, he asked after friends Ian had mentioned, often only in passing, in his letters.

Father’s increasing breathlessness meant that Ian did more of the talking than usual. Towards the end of one such conversation, Father said, “I’ve said often enough that I’d be pleased to see you come home for good.”

“I’m sorry…” Ian began.

“Don’t be.” Father said. “As it has worked out, maybe that’s just as well. Just as well for you, if not for the place itself. And if you don’t realise by now that you matter more to me – well you’d be a fool, and you’re not. Angus and Fraser between them can manage thing here for a year or two – maybe three, but I wouldn’t leave it longer than that. But all the same – don’t go resigning your commission just now.  They’ll let you say on a few weeks, you said, and I think that will be long enough, from what the doctor says.”

* * *

 

 

“You seem distracted or do I mean abstracted?” Honoria said. They had reached the second cup of coffee stage (another present had arrived from her American friend, Cornelia). The early morning sunshine streamed through the breakfast room window. The Dowager Duchess had welcomed Dorothea back from the visits to the North with open arms. Dorothea was not sure when she had stopped thinking of her grandmother-in-law as “The Dowager Duchess” and had started to call her Honoria without self-consciousness. _“You’ll love my grandmother,” Gerry had said, “and she’ll love you.”_

Honoria was still looking at her, head tilted slightly to one side. Her Grace was not (at least in this sort of thing) quite as scatty as she made herself appear.

“A disturbing dream.” said Dorothea finally.

“Not a nightmare.” It was a question not a statement.

Dorothea shook her head. “No, and nothing much happened in it.”

“Last night?”

“The night before.”

“It must have been a disturbing dream. Do you want to tell me about it, my dear? Or was it too disturbing for that?”

“There was nothing in it that I couldn’t tell you. Nothing in it, really, to count as disturbing.”

Nevertheless, there was a long silence. Honoria wondered if there really was “too much of this sub-consciousness going about”. Now who had said that? Countess Severn and Thames probably. It was the sort of thing she would have said.

“Only tell me if you want to.” she prompted her granddaughter-in-law gently.

“I was walking along a pavement.” said Dorothea. “It was the road my parents’ used to live in, before the Blitz. At least it was at first. But I was myself as I am now. A man was walking along beside me on my right hand side. I knew him. I mean, in the dream I knew him. Really I don’t think he wasn’t anyone I’d ever seen before.  Anyway, I reached out and took his hand and held it and we carried on walking along, holding hands. I didn’t think about it; I just did it. Then of course I wished I hadn’t, but I couldn’t think of a way of taking my hand away without hurting his feelings.”

“Why did you want to?”

Dorothea looked at Honoria in surprise.

“But of course, I shouldn’t…..” Dorothea thought about it some more. The man’s hand had been pleasantly warm, broader and more substantial than Gerry’s. She had tried, when she had first woken up, to convince herself that the dream-man had been merely a representation of Gerry. He had not been. Gerry’s fair hair had, like his uncle’s, been of that pale yellowish hue sometimes called tow-coloured. The man in the dream had been sandy-haired, more strongly built and perhaps a little taller than Gerry. Gerry would have been entertaining her with a flow of clever chatter and been light on his feet. This man walked almost silently beside her with a more solid tread. The man in the dream had not been Roger either. She was quite sure about that.

“As we walked,” Dorothea continued, “the streets began to be more broken. Some of it was bomb damage, but some of it looked as though it had always been the sort of area that…..”

“Your parents would not have like you to walk through alone.” The Dowager Duchess finished the sentence for her.

“Yes. Sometimes we appeared to be in Britain and sometimes we were somewhere else. People looked at me and muttered to each other, and I felt too smartly dressed, too privileged. But there was no problem. He said to me “ _Don’t worry, you’ll be safe enough with me. I’ve been to worse places and seen far worse than this.””_ His voice had been quite different from Gerry’s too and Dorothea had been unable to quite place the slight accent.

“But you weren’t so sure you were safe? That was what was disturbing?”

“No – I felt completely safe. I knew we would get to wherever we were going eventually, quite safely. It seemed a long walk, and I thanked him for taking the trouble to look after me. He just said he liked helping me. Once or twice I made some excuse to let go of his hand – used my handkerchief or took a stone out of my shoe. He waited very patiently and simply took hold of my hand again before we carried on.”

“So what did disturb you so much?”

“That I had held his hand in the first place. And that Gerry was somehow watching and felt hurt; that he thought I had forgotten him. And…” Dorothea paused, twisting her coffee cup around on its saucer. “…and that I liked like holding this man’s hand and didn’t really want to let go.”

Most strangely of all, she felt far more guilty about the dream than she had about that night in London with Roger, which, once she was sure his feelings went no deeper than her own, had scarcely troubled her conscience, although she knew that it probably should.

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked on into the silence in the breakfast room.

Honoria cleared her throat a little. When she spoke, her voice was the voice of an old lady.

“If Gerry was hanging around he would be doing so more visibly. Wimseys do, you know. I know you can’t see the ghosts, but Gerald, Peter, Harriet and I can all do so, and we would have told you if we’d seen him. And I hope you know that I will always regard you as my granddaughter, quite as much as Winifred.”

She reached out her right hand, trembling as it always did now across the tablecloth. Dorothea reached out and gently covered it with her left hand. The sunlight caught on Gerry’s signet ring and made a spot of light glance across the ceiling.

“It’s been a long enough time.” said Honoria. “That’s all it means.”


End file.
